


Firsts

by Elmbird



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Angst, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Boys Being Boys, Eventual Smut, Gay Billy Hargrove, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:49:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24783394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elmbird/pseuds/Elmbird
Summary: The first kiss was the final clue as to why Billy Hargrove had hounded Steve from the start and also maybe why he had hit so hard at the Byers’ house.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 27
Kudos: 118





	1. Nineteen Eighty Five

**Author's Note:**

> Heya Y'all, this chapter is pretty tame. Smut will increase with the next one.

They got drunk together at Tammy T’s party. That’s how it started. Steve had been drowning in the living room, in a sea of dancing Hawkins High students, who only a few hours before had been released from the captivity of school to two weeks of freedom called Holiday Break. The night was not holy or silent, the music and drunken sing along had followed him out into the backyard, past the fire pit, and the couples huddled around it for warmth.

Hargrove had been there, standing at the edge of the light cast from the flames, about to be swallowed up by the night. He looked like he always looked but somehow different, could have been the fact he wasn’t running his mouth and parading around the party bare chested. Steve had been buzzed enough to wander over, wanting to give a warning about the dangerous things Hawkins had that lurked in the shadows, but in the end he’d just asked for a cigarette.

It’s not like him and Billy hadn’t talked before then, they are the two best players on the basketball team. If they hadn’t of talked they wouldn’t of won any games. All the shoving, elbows, and shit talking that took place during practices some how turned to sportsmanship once they were playing against another school’s team. Hargrove likes winning, after Steve finally understood that the next thing he had to understand was the blonde didn’t believe in apologies. _You want to know the truth about apologies, Harrington? Only assholes apologize. They do it so they can get away with doing the same shit over and over._

True to his words Billy never apologized to him, instead he made a passing comment, _That pretty face of yours didn’t do such a bad job of healing up._ Said it in the locker room while they were both shirtless. The shirtless part - it’s not a detail Steve should remember but his mind kept bringing back out to examine, right next to the fact that Hargrove’s called him pretty more than once. Could chalk it up to him being an asshole but for some reason Steve can’t leave it at that.

Billy had been drinking vodka straight from the bottle, offered Steve some by handing the bottle over, hitting his chest with a thump.

_You want to tell me what’s so great about two weeks at home? Hmmm?_

Steve remembers how Billy had swayed on his feet, heavy boots deep in snow, helping him to keep his balance. The orange flames from the fire reached his blue eyes, setting them a blaze, showing something like pain and anger in their depths. He had held Steve’s gaze while he sneered out the words. 

_Trade you houses._

_You don’t want my house, pretty boy. Not the bricks and mortar and none of the shit that comes with it._

_My swimming pool has a portal to hell…_

Billy took the vodka back after that, liquid sloshed in the bottle with the force of the grab. Then he gave Steve his cigarette to finish.

The next couple days were spent bumming around together, both of them angry at something beyond their control and not wanting to go home to face it. Drove from the quarry into town and then back out again. Used six packs of beer and fresh packs a cigarettes to move between the early afternoon and into the late hours of night. Excuses mounted on top of unopened cans of beer while the meaning behind words hung in the air.

Billy would say, _That beer’s not going to drink itself._

Steve would answer, _Funny thing, I might actually agree with you,_ before he took the can from Billy’s hand. 

All the while his mind would silently decode their words _-_ Stay - Don’t worry I’m just as lonely as you are _._

They would part ways just after midnight and then meet up again before noon the following day to do it all again. The Camaro became their car of choice, Billy has more cassettes than Steve. They talked about nothing - mostly. Anything serious was said in two sentences or less.

_My old man is a hard ass just like his dad before him. You think the apple falls far from the tree, Harrington?_

_Jesus, I hope so. Otherwise I’m doomed...._

_...E_ _ven when my parents are home - they’re not really there. It’s like they show up just to play house._

_I’d pay good money for an empty house, no clueless Susan, or pissed off pops roaming around._

_What about Max?_

_The shitbird? Yeah, she can stay. Not that she would want to._ Billy took the cigarette he had lit from between his lips, handed it over to Steve, ending the conversation. 

It would be stupid to say they both didn’t know that something had to give. By the thirdday they had established routine. The routine was all consuming. When it broke, it broke like a dam.

All those beers and a boy has to take a leak eventually. They pissed into the quarry like any drunk teenager would, swayed dangerously close to the ledge. When Steve was king he always liked to live it up, but this kind of reckless was new territory. He made it out of tunnels to go over the edge.

 _You looking at my dick, Harrington?_ Billy had questioned, called over from his place at the ended of the rocky road. The cherry of the cigarette hanging out of his mouth burned bright in the dark blue night. Cold air swirled around them, moving his curls with it.

Steve wasn’t but the question brought past locker room images to the front of his mind. Stollen glances taken on the excuse of trying size up the other boy, trying to label him as competition, and not something else - something foreign, a budding feeling that he’s felt before but never lined up with something like this or anyone like Billy.

 _You wish, man._ The words had felt more true once they were out of his mouth. That electricity he told Dustin about that one time, crackled in the air.

Heading back to the car Billy had stocked behind him, boots landing hard and heavy on the frozen earth, sending chills through him. The pace picked up until his back was up against the Camaro having been grabbed and spun around by Billy.

Out in the freezing cold the first kiss had been sloppy and wet, left Steve’s lips chapped. It had surprised him and not at the same time, found some middle ground of understanding. Had been more of an answer than anything. The final clue to why Billy Hargrove had hounded him from the start and maybe why he had hit so hard at the Byers' house.

Their teeth chattered from the cold and knocked together, they kissed through it, added tongue to warm them up. Got so warm the cold metal of the Camaro disappeared from behind Steve’s back. The whole of Hawkins disappeared too, Steve had never been kissed - not like that. Wrapped his arms around Billy to pull him closer as they swapped saliva and licked into each other mouths, tastebuds a texture. Building and building with nowhere to go. The kisses finally slowed and warm heat settled in his stomach. The last few soft in away he didn’t know could exist between two guys.

They did it again the next night and the following. The moon light the only thing to go by as their hands became more adventurous. Billy Hargroves body might be the only geography Steve has ever understood. 

_Do you feel that, pretty boy? That’s all you._ Billy’s voice had been husky when he asked it, hand holding Steve’s, keeping it pressed to his hard-on trapped under tight denim.

Yeah, he felt it, and a hundred other things, but in that moment it had been easier to focus on that one things. On how Billy’s hardness made him ache in his own pants. 

The first time that it was more than dry humping and hand jobs- - they didn’t even make it all the way out of their clothes, it was built on fragments of movements, pushing and pulling. Steve rung in the New Year on the carpeted stairs of his house with Billy’s fingers thrusting into his ass, making him feel a new kind of pleasure and excitement. He asked for more, moaned when he couldn’t speak. Arched his back and rocked with shameless need. Kissed Billy back every time.

His first words of 1985 were, _Please Billy, don’t stop,_ and _oh god._

He spent the first day of the new year cleaning dried come out of the carpet and questioning everything he knew.


	2. Taste of an Apology.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been writing what feels like dead ends for the last few weeks. A whole lot of paragraphs going nowhere. Hopefully this chapter breaks through and y'all like it. If you do like it I always appreciate feedback.

The chill in the morning air on Monday is biting. Bites almost as hard as Hargrove walking towards the school with someone bleach blonde junior hanging off his arm. Steve can feel the grimace on his face as he watches them go, turns his collar up against the cold, and pulls his books off the hood of the Beamer. School started back up last week.

Ignoring each other has become a competitive sport.

Last Monday, the first day back from winter break Billy had come up behind Steve, body jerked in surprise, muscles went tight. The blonde whispered words as sharp as knifes, hot breath brushed the shell of his ear, _Nothing happened. Got it, pretty boy?_ It hadn’t actually been a question and yeah, Steve had gotten it. Not completely surprised by the asshole move, but surprised by how deeply he felt the disappointed of it. The slap from Hargrove on his shoulder as he walked away had been made of salt.

Steve had stood frozen to his spot in the crowded hallway as kids bumped into him. Watched the broad, leather clad back of Hargrove as he walked away. Disappearing into a sea of students. Leaving Steve to feel wounded and a little bit like bullshit. 

Steve spent that first week remembering what loneliness looks and sounds like. It looks like coming home to an empty house every night. One bedroom out of four slept in. The others collecting actual dust. Sounds like a phone call from his mom made only to get on his case about getting his grades up, and ask questions about his future on behalf of his dad, who talks to him through her. Too busy to pick up the phone himself. 

There is no one to talk to. Not even Henderson. They’re close but they’re not that close. That little bit of difference in age just enough.

Plus it wouldn’t be fair to unload on Dustin. And it’s not like the kid would understand because Mrs. Henderson is perfect. Bubbles over with warmth, homemade cookies at the ready. The woman who brought Steve into the world has no warmth. His house is cold despite the thermostat being kept at a comfortable seventy degrees. Steve gets stuck thinking about those conversations he had with Billy and their hidden meanings. The things he told the other boy without actually saying them.

When he is not getting stuck on words with hidden meanings he is remembering how Hargrove promised stroking him from the inside would feel good, and how he delivered on that promise with two fingers thrusting deep inside of his ass while he jacked himself off. Remembers all the kissing and touching that led up to that moment and when uncertainty tinged with pleasures made his cock kick in excitement. Remembers until he can’t not touch himself. Aching and hard. Fingers dipping into his own heat for the first time. Breath bated. Billy’s fingers are better, hips rocking chasing something he can’t get from his own hand.

On Tuesday Steve brushes off his crown, gives it a polish, is going to show Hargrove what’s what. Is tired of seeing him around school with that blonde chick trotting beside him, perm bouncing. Steve can’t help thinking she looks like a poodle, spindly legs and big hair. 

At lunch he sits with Sandra Crawley, a pretty sophomore. Making her laugh is easy. Her laugh the kind that is attention catching, sweet and high. It catch Billy’s attention, alright. Steve knows because his apple is wordlessly snatched off the lunch table as he walks by, boots hitting the cafeteria floor with anger. Later in the day when Steve shows up for basketball practice he finds the browning core in his gym locker. It’s a small victory. 

The next day Hargrove has ditched the blonde and has take to laying it on thick for Becky. Becky, who’s locker is conveniently located just down from Steve’s. The curly haired boy leans on grey metal, chewing gum, eyelashes fluttering as he looks her over, shamelessly flirting. Sandra stands with Steve, her back to Billy. She is talking and he is putting on his own show of listening, like her words are something to hang on.

Over the head of the petite girl it is easy for Steve to watch Hargrove. Gaze lingering longer and longer on him until the he casts a burning look over Becky’s shoulder at Steve. He acts like the king Billy so badly wanted to see, holds his blue eyed gaze while reaches out to touch the frill of fabric on Sandra’s collar. She is blushing Steve doesn’t have to look to know. The red working its way onto Hargrove’s checks, and the fire in his eye is much more satisfying to watch. 

Becky catches on, throws a sly glance over her shoulder to see who is getting that look out of Billy, eyes skip over Steve to land on Sandra. Sizing up the underclassman in herplaid ruffly shirt. 

By Thursday the rumor going around Hawkins High is Billy has the hots for Sandra and Steve is pining for another shot with Becky. The black eye Billy is sporting adds fuel to it even though Steve has nothing to do with it. 

The passive aggression turns physical come basketball practice on Friday.

Steve and Billy throw elbows at each other on top of insults. Momentum building all through practice. Tommy who lights up at the thought of a fight scrambles to get out of their way as the come down the court. Sneakers screech on the polished wood floor. The freckled kid gives a nervous laugh that Steve just barely catches as he drops the ball and shoves back into Billy. And yeah, there is fire in him. He is burning up for Billy. Needing release that he blames the other boy for.

Coach finally has enough of them. The hour of practice, one hour too many this Friday.The whistle blowing is background noise, can’t compete with the sound of blood rushing in Steve’s ears. When the whistle doesn’t work he starts yelling at the rest of the team, _get in there and break it up!_

They are being pulled apart. The fight changes - becomes something different. They are fighting to hold onto each other. It’s not a fair fight, they are out numbered. Eye contact becoming the only way to hold on as the distance between them grows.

It’s the end of practice and the two of them gets laps, ten each. Billy is sentenced to do his outside and Steve, his in the gym. The laps keeps the blood pumping, keeps him sweating.

Steve waits, stands at the end of the rows of lockers, the showers behind him. He is ready. You don’t do what they did for two weeks and walk away from it unscathed. You don’t walk away from anything unscathed. Each thing takes or reveals a little piece of who you are. Leaving you to question everything.

This is not the first time Steve’s questioned everything he has known. It has kind of become an unwanted recurring theme in his life. Blame it on the Upside Down, or Nancy informing him that they had been bullshit, or that he was a king who threw in his crown to be a babysitters. Whatever stable ground was under his feet disappeared a long time ago taking his idea of who he was with it.

When Billy storms into the empty locker room. Steve is ready - at least he thinks he is.

Blue eyes serious and angry. His bare chest is dripping with sweat, basketball short clinging and riding up his damp thighs. He stretches his arms wide as he sways from one foot to the other, back and forth, slamming left open locker doors closed along the way. The slamming sound bounces around the room, there is no one here besides the two of them to hear it. The team having left in a hurry after practice, there is a party at Tina’s tonight. It’s a party that neither him or Billy are going to make it too.

The last locker slams closed. Billy doesn’t stop throwing his weight around. Throws himself right into Steve, takes fistful of his shirt. Walks them back into the showers and only lets go to flip the handle.

The kisses are as cooling as the water washing over them. Focused and deep, slow. The contrast startling and arousing. Soaking wet basketball shorts tenting. Billy does’t apologize but the way he is kissing feels an awful lot like one.

_Only assholes apologize. They do it so they can get away with doing the same shit over and over._

It takes kissing again for Steve to realize they shouldn’t be doing this - not like this. These kisses feel open and honest. The excuse of winter break is gone and the familiarity of what they are doing is a breeding ground for confusion and hopes set too high. He doesn’t dare to hope but there it is sitting at the back of his mind like something that can’t be unseen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always thank you for taking the time to give this a read!


	3. There Are No Words Here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Hello!
> 
> Turns out this story needed Billy's POV, and it took me a little while to realize that. I truly thought the next chapter was going to come much sooner than it did. Thanks to everyone for reading this one, and sticking with me despite my oh so slow writing of this.
> 
> Feedback is always welcomed and appreciated. Enjoy!

These bruises are different, they don’t sing out like the others do. They ache dull and deep, taking root in Billy’s bones. He drops to his knees, purple yellowing, rocking on them, absorbing how it smarts, a reward for bad behavior. He’s got behavioral issues that his old man can’t beat out of him. Neil gets an A + for trying, though. Takes to it like he takes to all his responsibilities, the righteous S.O.B. Billy sneers at the thought, split lip pulls, like it wants to start bleeding again. 

Above him, pressed up against the washing machine, the prettiest boy he’s ever seen goes stumbling over words like he has two left feet, “ _Hargrove,_ you - listen- you don’t have to do this, alright? _”_ Half hearted tugs on the collars of his leather jacket become more insistent. The laundry room is warm, the flush on Steve’s cheeks bright, the party upstairs all but forgotten in favor of this.

This isn’t the first time Harrington has said those words to him, the context is different this time around, thought. He’s not being pulled away from a fight, like he just was. Steve’s chest pressed to his, a barrier that Billy couldn’t bring himself to crush. Backed away and out of the room, from sets of prying eyes and the failed chorus of, _Fight!_

_For shit’s sake, Hargrove, knock it off. You don’t have to do this. Let the dumb kid be._

Tina’s living room, he was going to turn it into a goddam wrestling ring, use some dip-shit, JV quarterback to make it happen. The unprompted sour look the kid had thrown at him, had made Billy giddy. A sick happiness, the delight of violence to fill the void left in the wake of a shameful beating from his dad. The motion is always continuous, his dad hits him, Billy goes out looking for someone to hit in return.

Tonight isn’t the first time he has come to a dead stop, and landed on his knees in front of Harrington. Last week he did it in the showers at school, yellowed out bruises on his knees ache dull as a reminder, he keeps rocking on them, ache adding to the hardening of his cock, precome wetting the tip, kissing the fabric of his briefs.

Sometimes, he’ll admit it, there is a thing akin to sweetness between the two of them, edges smoothed over, but tonight he can’t swallow it. It, that sweetness, never should have fucking been formed in the first place. Steve is the kind of guy who, once he’s gotten a taste, goes seeking out more. The princess left him needy for it, or maybe his upbringing did. Whichever way, Billy realized early on that Steve is needy. Billy should have stayed clear.

The bruises on his jaw, sing out that he is a fairy as loudly as Neil’s harsh words, and punches thrown is disappoint had. If Billy can’t answer their song with his fists he is going to answer with his mouth, take pretty boy down, show him that he does, have to do this. Marrow won’t let him do anything else. He is fucked up, down to his bones, is going to bruise his throat from the inside out if Harrington would just let him already. One large hand covers the top button of his jeans. 

Billy wore himself out with his own careless flirting. In the blue-black of night that was what those first kisses had been, just him being tired as shit of himself. Nights of endless chit-chat, and the six packs of beers that kept both of them from homes they hate, or going anywhere else. Pretty boy had seemed like an easy mark. The rivalry had always been laced with carnal desire.

Billy had fucked up, royally. King Steve has a conscious, and it’s showing. He standing tall above him, with concern in his pretty dark eyes that could kill both their hard dicks. Billy fights to get his zipper down, their fingers tangling together as Steve ties to hold him off, despite the evidence of want bulging in front of Billy’s face. 

The breathless kisses that first night, ending at soft, had left him numb like after getting his skull cracked on a wall. Too close to sweet, something that Billy has’t been since long before his mom left. Seashells in hand, found just for her. He did it again in the showers at school, kisses breathless, until he sunk to his knees to escape from them. The disgust of the shower floor not enough to detour his own flavor of neediness. 

The thump from overhead is jarring, the sound of feet scuffling breaks through the floor boards, echos down to basement, momentarily drawing their eyes up towards the painted white ceiling. The party continues without them. Like neither Steve or him were ever up upstairs; drinking beer and shooting the shit with their teammates, with girls that neither of them had any real interest in. Billy can live with that, can live without the fight, if Steve would give up the fucking ghost and let him get his pants down.

Billy is ready for his split lip to breaks apart more, rip a little farther as he sinks down on Steve’s heavy velvet cock. Ready for pain and pleasure to shake hands. Short lived reprieve. 

“There is no one here to see, there is nothing to prove. Jesus Christ, _Billy_ \- what are you trying to prove?” Steve babbles at him, face wincing as his thumb brushes below the slip lip, his other hand holding Billy off by the shoulder. “What the actual hell is going on with you, man?”

Billy is done. Quick to anger at not getting what he wants, grating frustrationflashes through him. He pulls back, shoves his way out of Harrington’s space and up off his knees,“You don’t know shit, do you?” The accusation is filled with venom and angry humor. He licks over his teeth. Pretty boy is so fucking dense, he’d sink if you threw him in the ocean.

Steve rolls his eye, while adjusting himself in his jeans, “Yeah, not if you don’t tell me anything.” He answers back, the concern in his voice keeping him just short of sounding pissy. The combination is right, his word strike hot, push Billy back another step, the step is unbalanced, his shoulder hits the wall. The space of the laundry room is too small, his body is too small, there isn’t room inside of him for what is ragging below the surface.

“I’ve got goddam shit I can’t escape.” He fires off.

“Like, what?” Steve demands, hands going through his hair, eye fixed on Billy.

“My dad’s fists and my mom’s ghost.” He laughs mean, unwanted tears burn his eyes, threatening to spill. Steve’s stares at him, mouth hanging open, eyes flitting back and forth, sorting the information, searching for a response. Billy grinds his teeth, tense jaw working. Vision blurring, he makes a grab, his beer can comes off the the dryer too light to have anything but wash-back in it. It’s one fluid movement as he growls and throws the can to the ground, arm arching high. It hits, clinks hallow, bounces, and rolls.

His own sharp pointed honesty, drowns out the fire raging just under his skin. A fire on the beach, put out with too much water, the smell of burnt wood, wet. Clogging his lungs.

The gold necklace Billy wears was seven month of paper routes saved up, and the last secret he shared with his mom. All the good surfer wore something shiny, something that flashed in the sun, a good luck charm, or a token to keep them safe while out catching waves. Billy had found his in a store at a strip mall off from the boardwalk. He had been twenty dollars short, and sore as hell about it, swore he’d had enough, but that hadn’t the case. His mom had asked him if the necklace was really the one he liked, hand hesitating before reaching into her purse, tucked a long blonde lock of hair behind her ear.

_Billy, your father wouldn’t like that I helped pay for this but, if you like it, I want you to have it,_

She was gone less than six months later, up the coast to Washington. She left all her beach dresses and sandals behind. He should have know she would never come back. Leaving California was the final nail in the coffin of that hope. She couldn't come back if he wasn't there to come back to. 

The first time Billy tells anyone about her it’s too late to go home, and too early in the morning to get breakfast. It’s just him and Harrington, settle in the backseat of the Camaro. Dawn on the Horizon, giving the shapeless rocks of the quarry definition from night.

“You know, this is first time you and I have actually talked. The other times done’t count now, you know that right? ” Steve asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, Harrington. I know” He answers back.

Billy knows. In between his mouthing off, prideful boasts, and bated words, he has been silent for years. Six years of saying all kinds of shit, while never really saying anything at all.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed the read let me know. Comments are cool!


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